After a Minnesota man named Alan Cooper accused Prenda Law of stealing his identity, the porn trolling firm responded with a defamation lawsuit. The lawsuit targeted Cooper, his attorney Paul Godfread, and numerous anonymous Internet commenters. On Thursday, Cooper and Godfread filed a 24-page response alleging that Prenda's lawsuit amounts to an illegal SLAPP suit under Minnesota law, that Prenda can't prove any of the allegedly defamatory statements are actually false, and that Prenda had invaded Cooper's privacy by stealing his signature.

SLAPP stands for Strategic Lawsuit against Public Participation. A number of states, including Minnesota, have laws to make it easy to dismiss lawsuits that are brought to intimidate and silence people who speak out about matters of public concern.

Cooper and Godfread's response illustrates the extraordinary lengths Prenda has allegedly gone to try to silence Cooper. When Cooper first started asking Prenda questions about why his signature was showing up in court filings, Prenda's John Steele called "several times within a matter of minutes" to discourage him from pursuing the matter. Cooper says that after repeated efforts, he couldn't get Steele or his colleagues to give him a straight answer about whether there was another man named Alan Cooper affiliated with Prenda or its clients.

After Cooper filed a lawsuit against Prenda over the identity theft allegations and Prenda responded with the defamation suit, Cooper and Godfread say they were harassed and intimidated by Prenda's lawyers.

"I can assure you that just ignoring legal matters, it’s not going to go away," Steele told Cooper in one of those voicemails, threatening that "your life is going to get real complicated" if he didn't respond to Prenda's threats.

Meanwhile, Steele's partner Paul Hansmeier was sending threatening emails to Godfread. In a message sent on Feb. 21, he accused Godfread and Cooper of being in cahoots with the anti-troll sites FightCopyrightTrolls and DieTrollDie:

I suspect that you aligned yourself with these defamatory efforts as a marketing strategy. I don't know if these efforts paid off, but I can assure you that making baseless accusations of criminal conduct is not a wise move for a licensed attorney. All of that being said, my client knows that you didn't work alone in these wrongful efforts. If you think we are missing out on more serious actors in your enterprise my client would be willing to consider decreasing your liability in exchange for information about these individuals. Of course, that interest will disappear if someone else comes forward first. Think it over and let me know. If you're willing to take the fall for whole group then you are decidedly a "true believer."

Welcome to the big leagues.

Steele and Hansmeier's efforts at intimidation didn't work. Cooper appeared in court last week in Los Angeles to tell Judge Otis Wright about Prenda's conduct. Now, there's a follow-up hearing scheduled for April 2, and Wright has insisted that the Prenda principals show up this time.

Cooper and Godfread argue the purpose of Prenda's defamation suit was "not to win on the merits," but instead to "force Plaintiffs to expend funds on litigation costs and attorney fees," "discourage opposition in Plaintiffs’ Minnesota action through delay, expense, and distraction," and "serve a vexatious or otherwise retaliatory purpose" for Cooper's original lawsuit. They argue this is precisely the kind of lawsuit Minnesota's anti-SLAPP law was designed to prohibit.

Wow, I just read Hansmeier's complete letter over on PopeHat. As Mr. Hat also notes, this guy is a grade A douchebag. The guy acts like he's got Godfread over a barrel, insults his knowledge of the law, insinuates that he's going to get millions of dollars out of him, and otherwise acts like he's about to lay the smack down. This coming from the guy who knows he is screwed. I would seriously pay good money to be in the courtroom of the judge that rules against him, just so I could stand up after court is adjourned and yell out "WELCOME TO THE BIG LEAGUES!"

Also, if anyone wants some fun reading, here's the claim filed by Steele for libel. The fun part about it is how it quotes a bunch of the insults against him posted online (starts around page 12). It's like a clearinghouse of hilarious stuff said about him. All of which is totally legal. The complaint is basically just "the bad men said hurtful things about me on the internet!"

17023 posts | registered Oct 7, 2002

Timothy B. Lee
Timothy covers tech policy for Ars, with a particular focus on patent and copyright law, privacy, free speech, and open government. His writing has appeared in Slate, Reason, Wired, and the New York Times. Emailtimothy.lee@arstechnica.com//Twitter@binarybits

I expect to see some disbarments. Jail time? That'd be the cherry on top.

Unfortunately, disbarment is more likely if the attorneys receive jail time. In most states actually getting permanently disbarred is really difficult. That said, these guys are doing their best to dig their own grave.

Ken at Popehat has been doing an awesome job following this and getting into the nitty-gritty legal details. Best line of the article:

Ken wrote:

Prenda Law faces reckoning in Los Angeles. That should have been their focus for some time. Once proceedings before Judge Wright started to heat up, they could have dismissed the two Illinois cases, as John Steele dismissed the Florida cases. They didn't. They may learn, to their regret, that they have committed the jurisprudential equivalent of opening a second front in Russia just before winter. Their winter.

Just when I think this case can't get any stranger or take another turn, it does. This is like a soap opera, except it's true. Good thing, 'cause if this were a script no one would believe you could sell it.

This is like watching a train wreck in slow motion. You want to look away....but you...just...*can't*.....

You have to respect Mr. Cooper for sticking with it and fighting against Prenda. It would be all too easy to be overly intimidating to have a (apparently) large law firm gunning for you, even if you know you are in the right. We have all seen cases that seemed obvious that went against the wronged party, it takes a certain amount of courage and determination not to just sit back and ignore the whole mess.

I liked that the majority of files being defended by Ingenuity 13 were originally uploaded from a VPN based in Germany.Strangely enough, it appears that John Steele has made comments on a blog using a VPN from the very same company.

These guys won't show up for court. What possible good would that do? They'll likely file some sort of challenge a few days before the deadline. Some sort of warrant will be issued for their appearance. Then the next phase beings. Deciding if they can be compelled to appear. That will take a couple years by itself. This whole thing is likely to drag on for longer than anyone cares or even remembers by the time things are done. There will be some sort of judicial sanction (fine or otherwise) and life will go on.